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The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.

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Born in International Falls, Minnesota, Matt Rasmussen holds degrees from Gustavus Adolphus College and Emerson College.

His poetry collection, Black Aperture, was selected by Jane Hirshfield as the winner of the 2012 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets and was published by Louisiana State University Press in 2013.

Rasmussen is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Bush Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, The Corporation of Yaddo, the Loft Literary Center, the Jerome Foundation, Intermedia Arts, the Anderson Center in Red Wing, Minnesota, and the McKnight Foundation.

Rasmussen is also the author of a chapbook, Fingergun (Kitchen Press, 2006), and is the co-founder of the independent poetry press Birds, LLC. He teaches literature and creative writing at Gustavus Adolphus College and lives in Robbinsdale, Minnesota.

A Horse Grazes in My Shadow

Startled by my breath it bolts
to the other end of the field.
The horizon's brow rasps
against a green cloud
which seems both
desperate and sincere.
Into a dead tree
a flame of bird
drives its burning beak.
And somewhere out here
I have come to terms
with my brother's suicide.
I wish the god of this place
would put me in its mouth
until I dissolve, until
the field doesn't end
and I am broken open
like a shotgun,
swabbed clean.

by this poet

Nothing ever absolutely has to happen. The gun
doesn't have to be fired. When our hero sits
on the edge of his bed contemplating the pistol
on his nightstand, you have to believe he might
not use it. Then the theatre is sunk in blackness.
The audience is a log waiting to be split open. The faint
scuff of